[Lungo-Koehn]: Hi, everybody. I think Mia was going to be late. So anybody here for Melanie or Paulette? I'm pretty sure they're both coming. Thanks, Susie. We'll give them one more minute. Oh, here's Paulette. We'll just give Melanie one moment, and then we're gonna get started.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay. Anybody wanna skip the meeting and go out for a drink? Oh, there's Melanie. Man, that got a smile from a lot of you, so I think I'm onto something here. It's only Monday, too.
[Ruseau]: I'll take it at 10, we can't adjourn yet.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Soon, maybe. Okay. Executive session 545 regular meeting 6 p.m. pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law, Chapter 30A, Section 18, and the Governor's March 15, 2020 orders, imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place. This meeting of the Medford School Committee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. So specific information, the general guidelines for remote participation, members of the public and our parties with a right and a requirement to attend this meeting can be found on the City of Medford website at www.medfordma.org. For this meeting, members of the public who wish to listen or watch the meeting may do so by accessing the meeting link contained herein. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so, despite best efforts, we will post on the city of Medford and Medford community media websites and audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. Additionally, questions or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing medfordsc at medford.k12.ma.us. Those submitting must include the following information, your first and last name, your Medford street address, your question or comment. You can call in by using number 1-929-205-6099 please enter meeting ID 950-4590-1152 when prompted. Member McLaughlin, if you could call the roll, please.
[McLaughlin]: Yes, Member Graham. Here. Member Kreatz. Here. Member McLaughlin here. Member Mustone. Absent. Member Ruseau.
[Unidentified]: Here.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Present. Member Mayor Long-O'Karn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Present. Six present, one absent. If we could just rise and salute the flag, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We have negotiations and legal matters and executive session of the Medford School Committee pursuant to general law 30A, section 21A to conduct a collective bargaining strategy session on the basis that an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining positions of the Medford School Committee. Medford School Committee will reconvene in public session following the executive session. Is there a motion?
[McLaughlin]: Motion to move to executive session.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Second. Seconded by member Van der Kloot. If you could please call the roll.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mastone absent. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Six in the affirmative, one absent. We're going to move into executive session. While I check what's burning. Thank you. We're actually on time. Just like to note that we have approval of the minutes. The May 10th 2021 school committee meeting motion to table. Motion to table by member Rousseau, seconded by Second and member Graham. I think I heard first roll call. Member McLaughlin, please.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone, absent. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Rand Klute? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: You should go. Six in the affirmative, one absent. The minutes have been tabled. We have number four, approval of bills, transfer of funds, and approval of payrolls. Motion to approve. Motion to approve by Member Graham, seconded by Member Kreatz. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone, absent. Member Ruseau? Mayor?
[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin? Member Mustone has just joined us.
[McLaughlin]: Oh, good. Thank you.
[Ruseau]: I don't think she can unmute herself yet.
[McLaughlin]: She can give us a thumbs up if she approves. Motion to approve the bills.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ms. Stone, you're not muted, but we can't really hear you. I don't think we can hear you. Will you say a few things? Oh, there we go. I just heard you.
[Mustone]: Here I am. I'm just changing my name. Thank you. All right.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Do we have a report of secretary?
[McLaughlin]: We didn't finish the roll on that motion to approve bills. Sorry. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Approval of bills transfer funds have been approved. Report of secretary if there is one?
[McLaughlin]: No, there's no report of secretary, thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And then we have number six report of committees. First one is the 5-3-2021 curriculum subcommittee meeting chaired by member van de Kloet, which was tabled from May 10th, 2021. Member van de Kloet.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, thank you. So the meeting was on 510, present was myself, Paul Rousseau, attended in place of Mia. Jenny Graham was present. Also present was Rachel Perry, Peter Cushing, Suzanne Galussi, Bernardette Riccadeli, Lisa Evangelistic, Joan Bowen, Dr. Marice Edouard-Vincent, Christina Lee, Medford Community Media, Bill Giglio, and Maureen Lavin. Rachel Puri discussed health education. She gave us a presentation. She mentioned that Medford is aligned to national standards. DESE is editing the 1999 frameworks and will put it out for public opinion. So because of that, that's why we're right now aligning to the national standards. We use the Michigan model based K to 12. We spoke about this at some length later in the meeting as well. In the elementary, social-emotional is taught by classroom teachers, which begins in kindergarten. In third grade, discussions about bullying education begins. And in fifth grade, we have introduction to puberty given by the nursing department using a Proctor and Gamble curriculum. There are pre and post tests provided to assess student learning. In middle school, the students have half a year of health and half a year in guidance. Then we talked about some detail about the curriculum in each of the years. And again, that there are pre and post assignments. At high school health, it's taught by health teachers. Again, it's half a year of health, half a year of physical education. Freshman year is introduction to health, sophomore year is healthy decision making, junior year is healthy lifestyles, and senior year is transition to adulthood. Mr. Rousseau asked whether gender identity was covered in grade six to eight, and Ms. Perry answered that it was covered briefly in grade six. National guidelines on sexuality and gender identity just changed and we're adapting to those. Mr. Rousseau followed, said that he was concerned it wasn't presented until senior year, but Ms. Perry assured us that it's also presented during the freshman year. We also talked about the right language for consent. And Ms. Perry said that the students are taught appropriate touch guidelines. Mr. Russo said, do we ever talk about sex in a positive way? And Ms. Perry said that the age of consent is 16. So we talk about abstinence to adhere to that guideline. Ms. Graham questions about the Michigan model and spoke about her concern that a consumer product video is used to introduce puberty. And there was quite a bit of discussion about this and seeing the hopos that we could see whether there is a better film or introduction that's out there. And so that's sort of on the table to explore. In physical education, in each of the grades, really introduction to basic skills and concepts. One of the things that we talked about the most is what's needed. We need to hire a middle school health teacher. We need an adaptive PE teacher. We need to provide professional development for sex education. And we need to provide professional development for adaptive physical education for the entire physical education staff. We did talk more about the adaptive PE and asked how we're meeting the needs of all of our students. Ms. Perry said that some students say sub-separate, some go into full class, and we're looking into using something called the flash curriculum. Ms. Graham followed and asked more questions about the Michigan model, and Ms. Perry assured us that it's a skills-based model. And I remembered from our, when we, used it when we approved it, there was a great deal of discussion about it at the time. Dr. Marice Edouard-Vincent said the Michigan model is definitely one of the most respected skills-based models. We do need to pay attention to the national standards until DESE updates theirs. Girls are hitting puberty at younger ages, especially children of color. Research tells us that we need to emphasize healthy eating. Anyway, it was a good evening, and many of the things that we talked about in terms of needs, we've picked up in our budget discussions. Thank you.
[Ruseau]: Is there a- Motion to adjourn? Motion to approve?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to adjourn, seconded by- I can. Motion to approve. Motion to approve, seconded by Member McLaughlin. Roll call, please.
[McLaughlin]: Uh, member Graham?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Minutes are approved. Next up, we have May 5th, 2021 rules and equity subcommittee meeting member Ruseau table from May 10th, 2021 policy on harassment table from May 10th, 2021. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you mayor. So I'll do the minutes first and then we can do the policy, which we had tabled as well. So on May 5th, yes, sorry. On May 5th, the rules policy and equity subcommittee met with member Graham and member McLaughlin. and we had a number of members of the community joining us, as well as our leadership team. So we were reviewing, we had three things on our agenda. One was policy BEDH, which is our public participation policy. Our current policy is remarkably brief. So we went through line by line the proposed update. We talked about how Much of the law and the current policies really don't consider remote participation very well. We talked about speech and how mute or kicking somebody out of a meeting on Zoom or putting them into a waiting room. All of those things are sort of unconsidered at this point in time. And they felt very much like suppression, frankly, to many of the members. the members of the school committee that were in the meeting, we were very adamant about ensuring people had their three minutes. We did discuss going to two minutes, but we felt strongly that three minutes made more sense. We also discussed some language around, let's see, there was a lot of discussion, sorry. So we discussed different language options to put on our actual agendas, because one of the confusions that appear to be very common today is that public participation and community participation are two different things. One is that section on our agenda that we occasionally have where somebody does a presentation, and the other one is where people speak on items on the agenda. So we've drafted new language that is quite explicit so there's less confusion about which one is which and what the members can and can't do during those times. We also, let's see. So we also compared our own process to the state house when they have subcommittee meetings and other types of hearings. We probably won't have anything quite as robust as that without having a whole lot more staff at technology in every space. So we did approve an updated policy, but due to community feedback, that will actually be getting re-reviewed on our June 16th at 4.30 p.m. subcommittee meeting. I don't believe it's posted, but the agenda has been created and sent to the superintendent. So that particular policy is not ready for prime time with the school committee. The second item addressed was the agenda creation and format for regular meetings. So there's, we have over the last couple of months talked extensively about how to improve the meetings, whether it's making them shorter or getting rid of items that don't need to ever be there, moving things around. And it finally became too much to try and incrementally change things we end up. So this is an entirely new format for our agenda. It is not going to startle anybody or anything. So we worked on and made clarifications to the proposed new agenda format, as well as some process for the public on how to get on the agenda. We made that robust by adding, putting it right into the policy issues of what if somebody asks the superintendent to put something on the agenda that is not legal. you know, personnel matters are not school committee within school committee authority. If somebody wants to come and speak on that, the answer is no, that's not legal. So we put a whole process in there for how the public can, if they are rejected by the superintendent, what can they do about it? How can they get the school committee to be aware of the rejection and actually allow us to override the superintendent if we should decide that that's the right thing to do. That one was, I think almost completely ready to go, but it dovetailed with some of the public participation policy. So that one will not be coming before the school committee until after the June 16th meeting as well. These two policies really are related to each other so much so that we couldn't put them forward yet. The other policy is the sexual harassment procedures policy, which is just called harassment, the policy on harassment. We discussed some boilerplate texts that we received. This is all related to the 2020 changes that the former administration made to Title IX. And so we had to have all of this stuff approved to protect us, frankly, as a school system in cases of sexual harassment. But we also didn't want to spend too much time on it because we fully acknowledged that the new administration will be in all likelihood reverting back to the prior Title IX language. So instead of spending weeks or more, we are just gonna accept the boilerplate language and then have to do it all over again, hopefully in September when there's new language. So those are the minutes. Does anybody wants to motion to approve those?
[SPEAKER_08]: Motion to approve. Second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by member Van der Kloot, seconded by member Graham. Roll call, please.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van de Kloof. Yes. Mayor Longo-Khan.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative. Negative. Minutes are approved.
[Ruseau]: Mayor, shall I just keep going with the policy on harassment?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Please do.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. So in our last meeting, I believe the policy on harassment had not been included in our packets, that's why it was tabled, So the language is in our packets at this point. And the only thing I would comment, unless you have questions, of course, on this, is that on the last page, the text that we have in front of us includes sort of three pieces of information that need to be filled in by the superintendent's office prior to it being sent up to the policy service. So I would just ask that if there could be a motion to approve this it be amended to include the proper phone number and address for the high school, middle school and elementary level reporting individuals to report harassment to.
[Graham]: Motion to approve with amendments for the correct phone numbers for reporting at all levels.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval as amended. Member Graham, is there a second? Second. Member Van der Kloot, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Policy has been approved. Next we have the 5-13-2021 and 5-18-2021 committee of the whole meetings, academic program, budget hearings. If we could get a motion for approval of those minutes from those two meetings.
[Ruseau]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I remember Rousseau seconded that.
[McLaughlin]: Second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin, roll call please.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, 70 affirmative, zero negative. Minutes are approved for 513 and 518-2021. We also had a budget hearing on 519-2021, which was a committee of the whole meeting. Is there a motion for approval of those minutes?
[McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Second. Glock, one seconded by member Kreatz, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Logo-Kern.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven the affirmative, zero in the negative. Minutes are approved. Number seven, we have community participation. Any citizen in the audience may be given permission to speak once school committee meetings regarding any item on the agenda for up to three minutes on any one item. A community participation portion of the agenda will be established, which will give any citizen the privilege of placing any item before the school committee or be heard on any item. Any item to be presented must be submitted in writing to the superintendent of schools by the Wednesday at noon prior to the scheduled meeting with a maximum of five minutes allowed for any one presentation. public participation, emails, questions, or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing medfordsc at medford.k12.ma.us. Those submitting must include the following information, your first and last name, your Medford Street address, your question or comment. Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, so Mayor, we did receive a letter from Mr. Giglio in regards to the Columbus School. We could take it up later in the agenda when we speak? Or do you want to hear it now? Whatever you think is appropriate.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I think under the Columbus School, we have a resolution under the Columbus School, so we can take it then. That's fine.
[Van der Kloot]: OK, if we perhaps did it at the forefront of that, it would be helpful.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Sounds good. Mayor? Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to send to the Rules Policy and Equity Subcommittee to draft a policy on how we are supposed, a recommendation for a policy on inclusion of community participation emails in our minutes. This appears to be an entirely new thing since COVID began, and I've contacted two other school committees, and minutes do not typically include the emails as written, which would be quite a problem if those emails were in fact vulgar.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Do you want to write that up as a resolution for our June 7th meeting?
[Ruseau]: Sure, I can do that and put it on the agenda.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I can do that.
[Ruseau]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. We have number eight, reporter superintendent. Number one, superintendent's updates and comments. Dr. Maurice Edward-Vinson.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Good evening, just give me a moment here. Good evening, I'm very happy to be here this evening and share some happy updates about our wonderful seniors. This week is our senior classes final full week of school. And to celebrate in style, the students are participating in spirit week this week. So today our seniors, they dressed up as their favorite musician or TV or film star. Tomorrow is tie dye day. Wednesday is where you are going day, meaning wearing a college t-shirt or a t-shirt from the military or future employment. Thursday is throwback style day and Friday, the seniors last day of school is senior t-shirt day. Whether students are remote or in school, the class advisors are urging all to participate in this fun week. As a reminder, Friday, May 28th is graduation practice in the gym. And Tuesday, June 1st is COVID testing day for all seniors who plan to take part in the graduation ceremony and the prom. Please note, even if you have received the vaccination, you must be tested in order to be able to participate in graduation and prom. What an exciting time for our class of 2021. Last week, the senior awards took place in person, and last Thursday, it was wonderful to be able to attend the scholarship night in person, where over 115 scholarships were awarded to members of the class of 2021. All of the scholarships totaled to nearly $200,000 in scholarship monies. I was honored to help present, along with Mayor Lungo-Koehn and Dr. Cushing, the nearly 40 James and Thelma Connors scholarships to our deserving students. Each scholarship awarded was in the amount of $3,000. The Medford Public Schools appreciates all of our alumni, businesses, and community groups who, for so many years, have funded these generous scholarships which help our students pursue their dreams. I would like to send a special thank you to Stacey Shulman, our Director of Counseling and Behavioral Health, and all of our guidance Councilors. Wendy Horn, Joel Menasha, Jason Nascimento, Krista Normandin, Alana Marcelin, and Victoria Small. Also, I'd like to recognize Ms. Andre Pierre-Paul, their executive assistant, for planning this wonderful evening that took place last Thursday. I'm also pleased to announce some very good news for both our Mustang Girls cross-country team and our Mustang Girls volleyball team. both of those teams won the greater Boston league championships. And so congratulations to both of our teams. You persevered despite the COVID-19 regulations and use that fuel to win. So congratulations to them. And I wanna just thank them for their hard work on those teams. I also wanna recognize that this past week was EMS week, emergency medical services, and the theme was caring for our communities. Our local EMS partner is Armstrong Ambulance, who has long been caring for our school community. Prior to COVID-19, Armstrong had provided our schools and athletic fields with AEDs, as well as taught our senior classes CPR, first aid, and the proper use of Narcan. However, this year, we are so very grateful for their assistance, staffing our COVID testing sites and now staffing the COVID vaccine sites. So we just would like to thank EMS Armstrong Ambulance for their support. of Medford Public Schools. I also would like to commend two of our CCSR students, Kayden Colasano and Lily Began, who have chosen to honor teachers in their final CCSR project for the school year. Their Thank a Teacher Week began today and will continue throughout the week. Their hope is that all students will take a moment to send a card or even a quick email to thank their teachers for their help and support during this difficult school year. Additionally, CCSR is working to refresh all of our little free libraries as a way to ensure that people throughout Medford are able to read anytime they want. For those interested in making a book donation, bins can be found in the front courtyard of the Columbus Elementary School, the main entrance of the McGlynn Middle School, and in the Andrews Middle School. Attention for all of our rising fifth graders. The band and orchestra are looking for you. No experience is necessary and all instruments are welcome and all genres of music will be played. Students would be able to participate twice a week during school hours. So interested students who want to join our award-winning music programs, please email Ms. Rello at hrello at medford.k12.ma.us. As you know, next Monday is Memorial Day, a day that commemorates the men and women who died while in military service to our country. The purpose of Memorial Day is to memorialize those veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. I hope everyone will take a few minutes next Monday and stop to honor a veteran. It is because of them that America is the land of the free. The mayor and the veteran's office will be hosting the annual Memorial Day service at Oak Grove Cemetery next Monday, and the service begins at 10 a.m. May is also Mental Health Awareness Month. And this year, the message from the National Alliance for Mental Health is, you are not alone. At the Medford Public Schools, we wholeheartedly agree and emphasize the importance of reaching out to students and staff alike, especially during the pandemic. Stacey Shulman and her team have worked nonstop to make sure that mental health is a district priority. The Medford Public Schools realize that it is okay to not be okay. We will continue to work together to offer support and resources to our Mustang community so that everyone can live healthy and fulfilling lives. No one should ever feel alone in their struggles. I want to say that we also have some very good news. The Cummings Foundation has awarded our CCSR program with a special grant in the amount of $350,000. Wow. Tremendous donation is going to help our program for the next 10 years. I'd like to send a special congratulations to Mr. Rich Trotter, to Mr. Michael Skorka, who along with the mayor's office and Mayor Lungo-Koehn advocating on our behalf. They worked tirelessly to attain this funding, which allows CCSR to continue to pursue its mission of developing responsible global leaders and citizens who will be positive contributors to society. There will be more details of this grant at our next meeting, but I wanted to share the good news with you tonight and thank the Cummings Foundation for their extreme generosity in awarding our CCSR program $350,000. So that was really, really outstanding news. My final remarks are going to be, in closing, that tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of the death of Mr. George Floyd, which did lead to protests across the nation around racism. I wanna leave you with the words of the late Robert F. Kennedy, who spoke about this in the late 1960s. Every time we turn our heads the other way, when we see the law flouted, When we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, we strike a blow against freedom, decency, and justice. I feel that his words are fitting for this time But I know that in Medford, we are continuing to do good work and just advocating for the rights of all. Thank you and have a good evening.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent. Next, we have a COVID-19 public health update and Medford Public School COVID-19 testing summary and update. nurse supervisor, Toni Wray and Mr. David Murphy.
[Wray]: Good evening, mayor and school committee members. I'll lead off with some good news about the city of Medford. Medford is now in the green zone with a 0.57% positivity rate, which is below the state average, which is 1.21% positivity. For the Medford Public Schools, last week we administered 4,648 COVID tests and had two positive pools. Persons in the positive pools were tested with a rapid antigen and an individual PCR test, and two positive cases were identified with contact tracing completed by the school nurses. Last week, the Department of Public Health and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education followed CDC guidance and eased the mask restrictions for pre-K through eight recess. After much discussion with the Board of Health and the examination of local data, the Medford Public Schools Administration decided to ease the mask restriction at recess for pre-K through eight students, starting on Tuesday, June 1st. Students will be provided with a Ziploc bag in which to store their masks during recess. Students whose parents prefer them to wear a mask at recess may continue to do so. We continue to stress the importance of social distancing, especially when students are unmasked. And inside of our schools, masks will continue to be required for all employees and students. The Medford Public Schools and the Medford Board of Health sponsored two vaccination clinics for students in May, vaccinating almost 300 students. Vaccination clinics are scheduled on May 27th for students who received their first dose of vaccine on May 6th, and also on June 8th for students who received their first dose of vaccine on May 18th. The Medford Public Schools Health Service Department encourages all Medford residents age 12 and older to obtain a vaccination. Vaccines can be obtained at local CVS and Walgreen pharmacies, primary care physician offices, and the Massachusetts vaccination sites. Pre-registration is no longer necessary. Vaccination sites can be found at www.vaxfinder.mass.gov. And one last request. The school nurses ask that parents send a copy of their child's COVID vaccination record to the nurse at their children's school for inclusion in the health record. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Ms. Ray. Next, we have introduction of Carmen Williams, Harvard Graduate School of Education Superintendent Candidate in Residence. I see Ms. Williams on the call, so I'll let you take it over, Dr. Edward-Vincent Markham.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you. First, I would like to formally welcome Mrs. Carmen Williams, who's coming to join the Medford Public Schools family. She's following in the footsteps of Dr. Thomas Milicheski, and I am really excited to have Carmen. I want to read some remarks regarding Carmen so that the community knows who she is and give her an opportunity just to say hello to the team. So it is with great pleasure that I welcome Carmen, who is a doctoral candidate in the HGSE, Harvard Graduate School of Ed, Educational Leadership Program. She will be conducting her residency with us from July of 21 until April of 22. with an anticipated graduation date of May of 2022. So again, based upon the success of last year and through an extremely competitive process again this year, Medford Public Schools was selected to be one of the highly sought after districts for residency in the entire nation. This fellowship, once again, is fully funded by the generosity of HGSE, and this partnership will provide our district with an additional opportunity to better meet the needs of all of our students. Mrs. Williams, she brings 17 years of solid education leadership that touches upon diverse aspects within the educational field. She received her Bachelor's of Ed, of science and education, elementary education, and our Master of Science in Educational Leadership from Indiana University. Mrs. Williams was an elementary school teacher, a middle school assistant principal, and middle school principal for seven years. And under her leadership, her middle school was the only school in the district to receive the Family Friendly School Distinction Award from the Indiana State Department of Education for parent engagement, planning, and implemented practices. Moreover, her school, Jefferson Traditional Middle School, acquired the highest accountability ranking at that time of an A school. Mrs. Williams served as an adjunct professor for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing teacher licensure at both Indiana Tech and Indiana University. Additionally, she has served as a teaching fellow at Harvard University, teaching such courses as leadership, entrepreneurship, and learning, leading people, leading change. the Workplace Lab, and Equity and Excellence in K-12 American Schools. Mrs. Williams will be involved in our district's work and learn about the demands, opportunities, and challenges that face a superintendent on a daily basis. Her commitment to high standards and her expertise in utilizing data to produce increased academic outcomes for students is in line with Medford's pursuit of excellence. She is a highly skilled facilitator of professional development, family community engagement, restorative justice, and data analysis. She will utilize this time to learn about the complex role and work of the superintendent of schools and what is required to scale the work of which she is extremely passionate. In closing, I do believe her diverse skillset will be valued in Medford Public Schools as we are endeavoring to use data to inform decisions, incorporate restorative justice practices, and leverage professional development for all educators. Ms. Williams will begin her full-time duties on July 1st, 2021. Ms.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Williams. Wonderful. Thank you, Dr. Edouard-Vincent. Welcome, Ms. Williams. If you want to start earlier, we're open to that as well. But I'd like to pass it over to you to see if you have just one, would like to say a few words.
[its9IWYSDBY_SPEAKER_08]: I just want to thank you all for inviting me into Medford Public Schools and for this warm welcome. I am ready to get started. I've been able to view some of your budget hearing meetings, and I see that the plan is in view, and I'm very excited to get started. So thank you again for having me. Thank you. Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: Thank you, Miss Williams. I want to say welcome from another HGSE grad. We are so lucky to have you. And I know the EDLD program and I know what the rigor is involved. And so I know how great you're going to be for our community. And I feel really fortunate that Medford is being selected to be part of the EDLD program. So please tell Paul Revell, we really appreciate it and Drew and the rest of the folks that we need you and we're glad you're here. And Tom, you know, led the way and we're happy to have you. So see you in July.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Thank you so much. Hopefully we'll get to settle in for July and August before you have to deal with us a real lot in September.
[Demos]: Thank you.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Welcome aboard. Very excited to be working with you. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Great. Next, we have recommendation to accept a donation of $10,000 to the McGlynn School from Pastor Zenzo Impact Church, Dr. Marice Edouard-Vincent.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Just unmute yourself, doctor. That I transitioned. I just want to say an incredible thank you to Impact Church, Pastor Zenzo Matoiga, the work that they're doing. This is the second time that we've received an incredible donation of $10,000 to be able to use towards school-based activities and events. And I just wanted to recognize their extreme generosity and say thank you in advance for their continued support of Medford Public Schools and supporting the McGlynn School in particular, which is where they are housed. So I wanna thank them for their generosity and I hope that we can continue this partnership moving forward.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Wonderful, is there a motion for approval?
[Van der Kloot]: I have a question. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Secretary of Schools & Community Relations, COB 22152. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Secretary of Schools & Community Relations, COB 22152.
[Edouard-Vincent]: They leave, there is some flexibility with how the funding is used, but it will definitely be used to supplement what the schools are doing. And normally we share, I would say normally it is shared, a shared benefit between the schools. So that is something that, We normally do and the official the official statement which we shared it is shared between both the McGlynn and between both the elementary school. and the middle school. And what Pastor Zenzo said is that it's an honor for us to be able to bring a blessing to your school. We are grateful to be part of your team and we support everything you do. And we are committed to touching the families of Medford together. And they said, thank you for allowing us the opportunity to be a blessing. And so, That is, it's really open-ended and the schools really get to decide how they will use that funding as supplemental things that are in need.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Any more questions or a motion for approval? Motion to approve. Seconded by There's a tie, but. Member Ruseau said it way before that earlier. Okay, so roll call, please.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Thank you very much, Impact Church. Motion has been approved.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you. Mayor, I just wanted to say to member Van der Kloot that some of the monies will be used towards specialized technology enhancements, but we don't have specifically what it is. It's kind of open-ended. So I just wanted to let you know that some of it will go toward technology, but there is some flexibility for the school.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, thanks. I was just curious.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Number five, we have highlights of Brooks Elementary School presentation by Principal Shannon Demos.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, prior to Miss Deimos, I just want to say as we hear from Miss Deimos and from Dr. K, I am very excited to have the schools just present their highlights. You know, sometimes we spend so much time focusing on what's happening with the pandemic that we don't get an opportunity to hear the great things that are just happening in our schools. So I just wanted to say those few remarks and Ms. Galussi will be screen sharing with us, but I thank Ms. Deimos in advance and the Brooks School team, and I thank Dr. Kaye in advance and the Columbus School team for the presentations that are going to take place today. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Let me just make sure. Ms. Deimos, can you unmute?
[Demos]: say okay here we go i'm gonna you see it there there you go thank you mayor it wasn't letting me so i apologize for that but good evening um madam mayor and members of the school committee i thank you very much for allowing me in today to share all some highlights of the brooks elementary school this this year um it's definitely been a busy year and I'm just excited to share all those highlights with you. As you see with the slides that I shared with you, the first I thought would be important to share would be our mission statement. To sum up the mission statement of the Brooks Elementary School, the Brooks focuses on educating the whole child. It's in the forefront of our daily instruction and learning and it drives all of our decision making. This 2020-2021 school year, the teachers and the staff worked tirelessly. They met the social, emotional, and academic needs of all of our students. The key word that I would say for our staff would be flexibility and dedication this year. It was incredible to watch them on a daily basis. Day in, day out, weekends, they really put the time and effort in and should be commended for that. I'm proud and humbled to be their leader. This year will definitely be one that I never forget as a first year principal. Our custodial and kitchen staff should also be commended for the efforts they've displayed this year. They maintained two cafeterias for us this year. We turned the gym into a cafeteria for grades three, four, and five, and our K1 and 2 stayed in the cafeteria as usual. That's, you know, it sounds, you know, pretty manageable, but it's a pretty big feat each day. So I just wanted to say a great big thank you to them. Also a great big thank you to our nurses. They worked night and day COVID tracking over the weekend at nighttime during the testing twice a week, in addition to their daily duties. Our assistant principal Mitzi Galante exceeded expectations in every way. And for that, I'm truly grateful. And finally, a great big thank you to our secretary who kept the office running smoothly been a constant contact for our families on a daily basis. This year, in order to continue open and frequent communication, I sent out a daily memo that I call a lie from the hive. Every morning goes out, gives us the happenings of the day, the absent teachers of the day, who's substituting for those teachers for the day at important upcoming dates. just anything that I think we need to share. And sometimes it just even has that happy quote of the day with a smiley face just to get your day started on the right foot. This would be something that really kind of united us because it was sent to in-person and remote members of the community. We implemented grade level materials pickup regularly outside the school. Some teachers even went door to door all year long for students who couldn't come to the school You know, that is just, like I said, flexible, dependable, dedicated. We're planning another materials book return for the remote students at the end of the year for their science books and their Chromebooks and things that information will be passed out at a later date. We did our picture day outside this year. It was actually kind of neat. We had two tents out the front of the school. The remote students and the in-person students both had time slots within that time. We just got word pretty quickly that O'Connor's can come back on Wednesday, the 26th for anyone that has to wants to retake their, their pictures. So if anyone out there is listening, I'm going to push that out in the morning as well. We just got a heads up that there'll be back for retake. So this was just a quick picture, a couple of pictures I wanted to share with the community. The picture on the left of your screen is our cafeteria that is spaced socially distance for the kiddos that are K1 and 2, that's where they're eating. You notice the stage, we put up some cute little decorations just to block all the storage that's back there. The picture on the right is really kind of what I wanted to show you that I think really is, very creative. We have a parent, Johanna Lynch, who was very good and created these fountain covers for us. So instead of just putting a trash bag over it and saying, don't use, they have the bees, the Brooks bees, for our motto. And some of them say, be kind, be safe, be responsible. They're on every floor, and it just kind of follows through with our theme. In front of the water bubbles, you'll notice that a lot of the way of keeping distance we had those markers on the floor with their feet to show the kiddos where to stand when they're waiting to go in and out of the bathrooms, as well as you can see the yellow stickers on the floor that we had he's down to show which direction we're walking down the hallway. These are two example classrooms of the Brooks this year I thought it would be important to just kind of get your eyes on what it looks like in there. We were very creative in our storage, and the way that we had to have things separated and stored this year was unlike any other year not using the lockers for a long time and so we had those white baskets that you'll see beside. The desks, they really worked well to put our backpacks, the student backpacks in, lunchboxes in. It kept it so that nobody was really tripping over each other. And it just was one of those tricks that we found for storage this year. Academics this year, we really focused on FOSS. The students had an opportunity to get their life science in for the spring. At the moment, we have some living butterflies and crawdads in the building. They're definitely interesting to watch. The students are very excited. The kindergartners are just waiting to let those butterflies fly in a couple more days. The teachers have participated in ECRI and Lexia training. We have several teachers that are joining the math piloting team. We have had training in PD on the culture of bias. We've worked on better lessons, Pear Deck. We've done some project-based learning. I showed this picture right here just as one of the examples, because it's one of our fourth grade projects that we did. And these pictures here, it's a mixture of some of the remote students and the in-person students that we had displayed. Social-emotional really was at the forefront of every day, every lesson this year. Responsive classroom is an initiative that is not new to the Brooks, but we fully implemented with fidelity. Zones of regulation, Michigan model, those grade level morning meetings were key to keeping us connected as a community. The grade level morning meeting would be that the students in the remote model and the students in person would all zoom into the same morning meeting. The teachers would have the students mixed up into different breakout rooms and they could kind of see their friends that they don't necessarily see all the time because their friend is at home learning remotely and they're in the building. It was something that the students really did look forward to and it was it was welcomed, it went very well. We had grade level and department common planning times around social emotional learning. We had remote common planning times that was separate from the grade level and department because the remote teachers felt as though they had some questions that only each other could really kind of help out with. So in addition to our grade level common planning times, I began an implementation of the remote CPT. in order to give them a chance to plan and discuss things together. And then we have our Brooks Bees, be kind, be safe, be responsible. When they're caught being good, they get recognized for those Brooks Bees behavior. These really just, they're not a new initiative this year, but it really speaks to the Brooks tradition and social emotional and the culture of our school. These coping skill posters was something that I thought would be important to share with you our guidance staff, along with our nursing staff had put these posters throughout the buildings as visuals for the students, you know, it really helped all the kids from kindergarten up when you would be able to see them visually looking and doing their square breathing. You knew that they were looking at those posters as they're walking through the hallways. You know, they breathe it for four, they hold it for four, they breathe, and they actually, it helps them with their calming down. Some of them prefer the lazy eight, but these were coping skills and visual aids that we had up and around all the floors of the school this year. our school events and culture. This year we had a lot of, we had our spirit days. They connected the community. An example was the PJ day. You see Ms. Galante and myself donning our best PJs in front of the front wall. And I didn't want to put any student faces on there. So I thought I would show the staff. The Brooks PTO has been very generous. They're helpful in planning enrichment and community engagement opportunities. They really did help keep us connected. We had a family trivia night. It was really fun. was not on the winning team, but I had a good time. We had a family concert with Alistair Mook. We had family yoga night, teacher appreciation lunches and gift cards, virtual book fair, virtual read-a-thon. They really didn't miss a beat this year. We just kind of took what we would do on a regular year and did what we could to make it a virtual way. The Brooks School was part of the Great Kindness Challenge. This was a special time for both the students and the staff. These hearts of gratitudes and kind words hung around the windows, in the hallways, in the rooms at home to share. And those Google Classroom pages and backgrounds of the remote students really kind of tied into the whole mood of the week of the Great Kindness Challenge. This challenge really, truly filled the buckets of many members of our school community, and we received that kindness certified school recognition just a few weeks ago. The Winter Olympics, I couldn't go through this without sharing this with you. I won't play it here tonight, but you'll have access to it on your screen. Miss Galante and I we went through and we had some minute to win it type activities that we taped each other with. And the students are still talking about it today, even though it was in the winter. They still want my trick on how I won the tissue box game. Ms. Jen Ellis, a third grade teacher, did a really great job taping this and making this possible. We had the third grade teachers introducing all the events. Ms. Galussi helped out to start the whole thing out at the beginning. It just really was one of those things where it was a grade level meeting again and we showed this during the morning meeting and then the kids got to talk about it. We had a community outreach day. We had some hive helpers volunteer their time. They donated all these supplies, and we created deployment bags for Massachusetts soldiers being deployed overseas. We created 975 bags in total, but we had so many extra supplies left over that one of our teachers, Ms. McIsaac, took them home and created even more bags to send along. And it was definitely a remarkable feat to see all of that created. And they were actually just mailed out this week to all the different countries that the soldiers were deployed to. We stayed connected through PTO enrichment programs and visual visitors, virtual visitors, sorry. Terry Cotter came to visit us, Rob Surrett and his hero art. K-2 had Tanglewood Marionettes just on Friday. Curious Creatures is always been a favorite. Grades three to five did Walker Between Worlds Storytelling by Leland Faulkner. And we had some really big hits with those mystery readers. We had the mayor and the superintendent, Dr. Cushing, we had Suzanne Glusi, all come as mystery readers to different classrooms throughout the year. We're gonna be ending the year strong. The kindergarten meet and greet is Wednesday for all of our incoming kindergarten students. We're gonna be welcoming them to our hive from two to 245 this Wednesday. We have the moving on ceremony for grade five coming up on June 16th with a rain date of the 17th. Fun day is coming up on the 14th with a rain date of the 15th. Kindergarten end of the year celebration is gonna be held in June. We just determined today that that's going to be Wednesday, June 9th. The ice cream socials coming up on June 3rd. That is going to be a drive-through event. So we have CB scoops. has provided some pints of ice cream. And I believe it's like some jimmies, excuse me, or some candies or something that are going in with that. And then when your family orders it, you get two little pints and some toppings, and it comes bagged up. And when you pull through our loop during your grade level time, your mystery guests will deliver it to your car. So we have some surprise guests all lined up to deliver that drive-through kind of ice cream. Because we were sad to not be able to have the ice cream social, but with everything being socially distanced and things, we couldn't be scooping ice cream this year. So we had to be creative. So it's going to be a drive-through style. The last day of school, we're going to have a fifth grade clap out on June 18th. The students will line the hallways and outside the steps and clap out our grade five as a good luck in middle school. Camp Mustang and the summer readers will be held at the Brooks this August. And we're excited to welcome the students and staff back in for that. Thank you, School Committee Mayor, Superintendent, Central Administration, and the community for allowing me the opportunity to share this information. It's truly a pleasure to be a member of Mustang Nation. Thank you. I hope I didn't take up too much of your time. I tried to be quick.
[Lungo-Koehn]: That was great. No, that was perfect. Thank you, Ms. DeMos. Great to hear all the wonderful things happening at the Brooks. And now I think we're going to hear about highlights from the Columbus Elementary School from Principal Kathy Kaye. Ms. Kaye.
[Kathleen Kay]: Hi, good evening, everybody. Thank you so much for inviting me to share all the good things that happened at the Columbus. I think Mrs. glues he's going to share my PowerPoint as well. Is that correct, Suzanne. Okay, she's shaking her head. Um, I just want to say first thank you so much. for all that you supported us with this year. And on my first page, you can see that there's a drawing there, an illustration that a fourth grade student, Nancy Donlin in Ms. Cogbill's class, she created that for me for teacher appreciation that we do a month at the Columbus. And I just was really, really impressed. So I asked her if I could have her permission to put it on the front page of our website. highlights from this year. And I would be remiss if I didn't say an incredible thank you to my left hand, my right hand, my two feet, my brain when I need it, and that would be Mrs. Nancy Sherman Hudson. She's just been a tremendous support to me and to everybody within the Columbus School community. So at Columbus, everybody from the teachers to the nurses to the custodians and the kitchen staff, crossing guards, everybody who works at Columbus has really been committed to ensuring that our school year is safe both academically and socially, emotionally for the students. It's something that we do every year, but it just, it took on a bigger, deeper meaning this year. And we wanted to make sure that we were trying to do what we could for both of our in-person students and our remote academy learners. So that's something we were very dedicated to doing. Sorry, Suzanne, if you can go back for just a second. Our priority was to focus on the whole child, and so that meant, especially in the fall, really having a focus on the child's social emotional needs before we would dive into the academics. The academics were important, but if the students weren't ready to learn, it was going to be that much more difficult to do. Our teachers and all of our staff really, really stepped up to learn and become familiar with those technological advances that the district provided for us. And on many, many, many, many, many occasions, they reached out on their own and brought things in that they found through their own studies and their own research to bring and help make the social, emotional, and the academic progress of our students more meaningful. And so I'd like to just say thank you to the school committee, central administration, and for supporting us at the Columbus all year long, especially during this very challenging year. Thank you. So at the Columbus, we decided we were going to put in safety protocols like we've done at every school, I'm sure. And you can see in one of the pictures, there's some dots we had on the floor with a direction, and then the next stop would have been six feet apart. So the arrow kind of helps now that we're able to have a little bit closer distance in the school, they can step on the arrow and the dots, and now they're three feet apart. In the upper right hand corner, that's Mr. Seery and myself. We were geared up to go outside and do loop duty where we're distance six feet apart. We've got our masks on. and our bright little gear that we got from the Safe Schools Program to make sure that when we're outside doing loop duty, we're safe and protected. And I can tell you that parents paid much more attention to me this year with that vest on. Down below, you can see it's a picture of Mrs. Mastoni's first grade classroom. You can't really see the shields, but because they kind of look like their cars, she decorated the front of their desks to look like a vehicle so that the protective shield was kind of like their windscreen. Each day, the teachers met in a social emotional morning meeting. And when we were doing the hybrid remote model, they would live stream that so that the class could come together as a cohesive unit. And as I mentioned before, they always started with some kind of social emotional activity to check in with the students and make sure that they were okay. What you can see on some of the slides that I've provided are some links to certain things that we created at the Columbus, myself, Mrs. Sherman-Hudson, or the teachers. I'm certainly not going to link on those now, but they're there for you if you have free moment. Who has those these days? But if you just wanted to take a gander, they're there for you. So what we did at the beginning of the year was we, Nancy Sherman-Hudson was instrumental as well as Mr. Gliona helping us with some activities in providing structured play for the students that help maintain social distancing when they were outside. And so that first link there would be what the document looked like that we shared with the staff so everybody understood what the expectation was when the kids went out at recess. We also provided some behavioral training. So at the Columbus, we've done the positive behaviors interventions and support systems, which is a grassroots program that the teachers have helped create. We've done that for years. So what we did was we took the pandemic and we adjusted our training. So it included the things the kids needed to do in school to keep them safe, responsible, and respectful during this pandemic year. And so we incorporated some of the students and some of the teachers in creating this video for us. And that would be the second link if you wanted to take a look. You can see what it looked like to be safe, responsible, and respectful in all the different areas of the Columbus Elementary School. What we also did on the next slide, we made sure that the teachers were continuing the use of the zones of regulation, the terminology in the language during their well-being, and their daily check-ins. And what one of the teachers, Ashley Sullivan, had created and shared with a group of people was this tremendous online resource for all kinds of social emotional links, books, games, movement breaks, breathing breaks. And so she shared it with her colleagues. And a lot of the teachers were able to put little emojis that look like themselves in these schools. And the kids could, you know, in this virtual school, and the child could link on a book, they could link on a video, they could listen to a story, they could read a story. And so that was something that was used very, very well for the kids. When they had some downtime or even if the teacher needed them to have a little bit of a break. Both Nancy and myself we participated in some Department of Education trainings, one of which was called beyond zoom. And so it taught us. activities on how to use Zoom more effective and in a more enjoyable way for the kids but still get some academics and some social emotional learning through this online virtual program. And one of the ones that we taught the teachers through this class and the teachers have responded to me that they really enjoyed it was The enter key is lava. So many times the kids would be chatting back and forth. You're trying to teach and you're looking at their chats. It was very difficult to do. So this is a really quick way the teachers could say to the kids, all right, boys and girls, what's your favorite flavor ice cream? But remember, if you touch the key before I say, it's lava and you're going to get burnt. So you have to wait until I count to three and say, the enter key is lava. They would type in their answer. And when the teacher would say that, they would all hit the key at the same time. and the answers would all come up simultaneously, and the teacher could look through those. So it kind of stopped some of the chatting back and forth that was sometimes distracting. And I know that the teacher said that the kids enjoyed that one. We also talked about using music for breakout rooms and transition times, but asked the kids what their favorite music was, and then that could play in the background. So that was a lot of fun for the kids and the teachers. Just like Shannon had mentioned, we did hold monthly grade level Zoom meetings with the staff. And we also had the remote team meet with us separately. And then the grade level teams meet as well, because the remote team felt that it was better that they talk with one another to find out what they could do for those remote needs. So we shared anything that we had to share with the teachers. And they also shared concerns, or perhaps maybe said, you know, taught Nancy and I things that we needed to do to work on. to help make it more effective moving forward. And then, of course, we did twice a week COVID testing. And this Zoom class we took, the educators were wonderful. And so I included that resource for you if we ever need more ideas on what to do moving forward. They had some really good ideas in that link down below. We continue doing our Conduct and Citizenship, which is monthly, and our WOW Awards, which is weekly. And so for those children who are learning remotely, we either sent them via email or we mailed them to them. So the kids were kind of excited to get this in the mail. What I did at the beginning of the year is I realized that the remote kids, normally what we do is the fifth grade students do our morning announcements. So that would include Pledge of Allegiance, the lunch menu, and a fun fact for the day. And usually our fifth graders do that but they weren't in school. So this year I decided I would create a YouTube account. And I would do those morning messages and just like Mrs. demo said, I would tell the teachers who was absent, I would give them information that they might need that was specific or important to that particular day. And then on Wednesdays I did where in the world is Miss Kay Wednesday. So in order to engage the kids in the building, because they weren't in the building, many of them, or at the beginning year, none of them, I showed them places like the cafeteria, the gymnasium, the front office, the library. And then I moved on to some of my travels because I did live overseas for four years. And so I included pictures and clues. And then I asked the students, where am I? And if you know, please email me and then it kind of created a dialogue with some of those students in that way. And so you can see that I combined one of my links, a regular morning with my where in the world is the first one if you wanted to take a look at that. And I think it happened to be a pajama day and I put my sleeping eye mask on and pretended like I was just waking up. So the kids enjoyed that I think. I also, this year, I did a weekly communication for the parents. I usually do a monthly newsletter, and I decided that in order to bring the remote academy together with those that are learning in school, it was important to send something on a weekly basis. We also had so many things that were changing on a weekly basis, so to keep everybody updated. And then what I did was I asked the teachers to share with me a remarkable, either remote or an in-person highlight, and I kept a a Google page for that. And then each week I would share one or two with the families with photos. Of course, I had to have permission so that they can see all the wonderful things that the teachers were doing with the students in the classrooms. And so you could see there's a link to one of my weekly letters and then my monthly letter, but it doesn't have the graphics. It's usually more quite colorful when I send it out in its entirety. We also had The remote fifth graders. So now when the fifth grade came back to school, they now do the morning announcements for me in my office. And I thought, okay, how can we get the remote kids to feel like they're not missing out on this privilege? Because it's always been the fifth grade privilege. So I asked the fifth grade remote teacher, Mrs. Lattarella, if she would poll her students and see if they're interested in doing the morning announcements, video recorded. And several of them, they said they were. And so that little link there, if you were so inclined, you could see one of the fifth grade students doing what I was doing on a daily basis. We also engaged in Mindfulness Mondays, which was the brainchild of the nurses, Mrs. Roberto and Mrs. Borriello. And I do believe they had some of the Tufts University helping nurses help them with these. And so they would teach a breathing technique and a mindfulness message, Monday, sometimes they were Tuesdays. And then what Mrs. Roberto did was she enlisted the support of some of our EL newcomer students, and then they would read what she would say in English, they would then read it in their native language, so the students would hear it that way as well. Every year we do the conduct and citizenship, and one of the students said to me, well, Ms. Kay, we really need something that's posted in the building. And so I said, Hank, you're right, we do. So what I did was I took the names that I post to the newspaper, that I post to the blog, that I put on the school website, and I posted them in the building so the kids can see who wins the conduct and citizenship award. And then I enlisted the help of the afterschool program, and they made those beautiful letters you can see in that picture there where it says conduct and citizenship. brought everyone together, they enjoyed it. We also utilized the wonderful common district planning schedule that thank you, Mrs. Galussi helped us put together and the planning team over the summer. And it really helped create some effective instruction because people, it wasn't guesswork as to who's getting EL and who's getting title one and to teach us who's getting special education. The teachers were able to coordinate much more efficiently. And so we're going to continue doing that forward. We had some collaborative planning time that the teachers were able to work with once a month with the CPT teams, but also grade level initiatives. And they also use their planning time to effectively meet as needed with their grade levels. And I'm proud to say that one grade level, third grade, even mentioned to me that they were meeting on Saturdays to plan collaboratively for their students, both the remote teacher and the in-person teacher. So that's dedication for sure. And all the teachers were dedicated. The staff meetings, we came together once a month virtually, and I have to say that I think a lot of the teachers really liked doing it virtually, because I know several of them have asked me, can we possibly continue doing that once in a while into the future? And so we came together, we shared, we questioned, we spoke about concerns, anything that was specific to education, social emotional needs, or just how the teachers were feeling in general. We also had many of the things that Shannon had already mentioned, training for the teachers, responsive classroom, ECRI, which was both in the spring and the fall, core five and literacy. We did a lot of work on cultural responsiveness and implicit bias at the Columbus. They learned all the technology things that I won't mention. They're there. And also we prepared the students for the upcoming Columbus name change. So we had some resources that teachers could use to generate dialogues and conversations with that. And of course, the ever fun and popular preparing for the remote MCAS. At the Columbus, we did hold our virtual conduct and citizenship award. And so normally we get we take pictures, they eat on the stage with me, they get a ribbon but a lot of that we couldn't do because the pandemic. So what I did was I would have like a virtual email with the students who won. they would then tell me their ideas for what they wanted the spirit day to be and then I would create this colorful little form and the students got to vote on what the spirit day would be in that month. So you can see a picture of one of the little boys who's in pajama day with Abby Harris who's one of our third grade teachers with one of her students dressed up in their pajamas. One thing I thought was helpful for the teachers was to create a document where they could generate a worry or a wonder, something they're wondering about or something they're worried about. And then I would answer it in colors so that they could see whosever question was there and what the answer was. And it might be a question someone else hadn't asked. But when the answer is there, they're like, oh, that's really helpful to have. I was wondering that as well. And so that was just ongoing all year long. We did hold a virtual literacy night. And I'm sorry, I missed that other slide. Susan, could you go back for one second? I'm sorry. virtual literacy night. We did have some presentations. Terry Carter came. We had Len Cabral, which the PTO got for us, who is a Black storyteller. And then I'll mention more of the things that they brought to us on another slide. Thank you. Sorry, Suzanne. Um, we had many pickup days, just like Shannon had mentioned. And, um, one of the very special things was we did have an anonymous donation and, uh, we had the parents come and pick up for all of the students, every single student at the Columbus got a whiteboard and some markers with erasers. And teachers have said that it really, really helped, um, advance and support the learning they were doing when the, when the students were learning at home. We also had two photograph days at the Columbus, which Mrs. Sherman Hudson organized. We had one in the fall where the remote families were invited, but we did one again last week, which was outside. And Shannon already told you how wonderful it was with O'Connor Studios. They set up a really nice tent and the kids were able to have their pictures taken out in front of the school. So at the Columbus, the PTO, which is ever generous and supportive and constantly helping us, really continued to step up from their homes, not being able to come into the buildings. And they provided extra learning supplies for the students with needs, art pads and watercolors for the remote kids so that they could do more exciting art lessons at home and have some materials to do that. They also created stars, which must have taken them forever. They cut them out and they were color coded. They put the students name and their grade level. And then they came to the school and decorated our first floor windows. So people who would come by the school could see the names of the students who belonged at the Columbus. We had two virtual book fairs. One was with Scholastic and the other one was with Porter Square. In those book fairs, the PTO was able to fund 220 books for both the teachers and the school library. So that's an amazing accomplishment and we thank them for that. We also participated in the Who's Reading Readathon, which the kids enjoy. And this year it was virtual as it is every year. So the kids knew how to do it because they've had lots of practice. We enjoyed some virtual presentations. We had the Museum of Science came for all grades. They did Habitat Explorers, Build for Survival, Changing Sky. Curious Creatures came for kindergarten. That was an animal exhibition virtually. The Tufts Traveling Treasure Trunk did an improv for kindergarten. TheaterWorks did Jacqueline and the Beanstalk and the Jungle Book for grades one and two. And in third grade, they had Colonial Trades come. The PTO also offered clubhouse. We usually do an in-person clubhouse, but because we couldn't, they offered kits. And so they sent home and oftentimes delivering to their homes, which again, the teachers at the Columbus often delivered supplies to families' homes as well. But the PTO delivered 80 kits to families in the fall, 90 in the winter, and 60 in the spring. And what those kits included were things like pearler beads, Play-Doh, friendship bracelets, decoupage, a window garden, just things that they could do with their hands to really keep them engaged when the day was over. And as you can see, it was quite successful. Many families were interested. They are providing a magician for us that's going to happen at our mini fun day. And his name is Robert Clark. And we had a newspaper, which I wasn't able to get the link. You see where it says newspaper link there, and I couldn't get it to work. But if anybody on the school committee wants to have a copy of that, I'm more than happy to share it with you. It was really phenomenal. The kids did a great job. And we also had a dog tag. The PTO purchased the dog tags. There was a little computer on the front. The kids drew a picture and their name on it on the back. And then they came outside and hung them on the Columbus garden fence. And they had a lot of fun doing it. Windy, but they had a lot of fun. closing out the school year for 2021 we're also going to have a kindergarten event where the families are invited Wednesday the 26th with a rain date of June 9. So our kindergarten teachers will welcome our new our newest incoming students our kindergarten present kindergarten. They will be doing a virtual kindergarten celebration for the end of the year, which they usually do every year. We are going to have a homeroom specific fifth grade move up ceremony, and it will be virtual for those students who are involved in the remote academy. If in fact 100% of the remote families feel that they're not comfortable having their children come to school. And then what will happen is we will have a fifth grade celebratory pizza luncheon on their move-up day, which is June 11th, tentatively. And then I have an end-of-year slideshow that has photographs of the students from kindergarten forward. So they'll get to watch that in the cafeteria, six feet apart, while they eat their pizza. We also have a mini fun day planned for June 17th and there is no rain date because there's no more time after that. And that's where the kids will go outside for a 45 minute block. They'll run around with games that Mr. Glyoner is going to prepare for us. Two grade levels at a time, very spread out on the field. And we're hoping that some of our remote families will feel comfortable to join us on that day. But if not, there are remote activities. So the students can engage asynchronously if that's more comfortable for the families. And then when they come back into the building, there will be a virtual magician presentation that the PTO has funded. As Shannon said, we're also going to have the Camp Mustang and Reader's Camp. And summer fun is also going to be at the Columbus this year. We are going to plan kindergarten play dates and the PTO at the Columbus usually does play dates for separate grade levels as well. And a lot of the summer will be planning for 2021. So I just like to show you a picture of many of the staff members at the Columbus in unmasked times. We got together to honor, I would say, Noel Lattarello's little boy, Owen. And that's just a really nice poster that the PTO had created for the Columbus School. And I just want to say thank you to my staff, all the teachers, everybody who works at the Columbus, to Dr. Edouard-Vincent and her wonderful team, and to the school committee as well. Thank you so much for your help this year.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Great presentation. Mayor? Member Vendaclu?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, I'd just like to thank both of our principals as well as those who presented last week. It's just so great to see some of the creativity. The desks that look like cars with the shields just absolutely just got it for me. So thank you so much. I mean, there were so many different ideas and creative thinking in those. You know, when we're talking sometimes about the issues, it's hard to, you know, understand exactly what's happening in the classroom. Then you see that and it's just knocks your socks off. So thank you so much to both of you and to all of our principals who've worked so hard this year and to our entire staff. Ms. Kay?
[Kathleen Kay]: If I may, I just want to say one more thing, and I'm sure I speak for Shannon and my other elementary principals as well when I say this, that what we presented is just tip of the iceberg. You know, those are the things that kind of came to the fore. There was so much that went on all year long that if I missed out on something or missed out on people in my school who did wonderful things, and I'm sure Shannon feels the same way, I truly apologize because everyone really stepped above and beyond tremendously this year. Thank you so much.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Great. Next, we have Mr. David Murphy, David Murphy, update on fiscal year 22 budget. Mr. Murphy.
[Murphy]: Thank you, Mayor. It's tough to follow up Principal Deimos and Dr. K with, as Mayor Vandekluz said, some of the real concrete examples of the good work that's taking place. But I will very briefly return us to the world of the abstract and numbers to go over and update for the FY 22 budget. So as the committee knows, we have recently completed five separate committee of the whole meetings of the school committee discussing the development of the FY 22 budget. This comes on the heels of several budget updates that you've received since February and talking about all the various funding streams. Like all the budget presentations, the first several slides are ones that you've seen before many, many times. So I'm going to go quickly through them to get to the summary portion coming out of the committee of the whole meetings. And then I'll take your questions. But this budget update is really just a precursor to the school committee's statutorily required budget hearing. You see that in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen with the slide that we used to represent the sequence of the budget process. Again, this is where we are right now. But after next week, the request will be made to the municipal government. As I've said on several occasions during the Committee of the Whole meetings, while the administration was tasked with developing a list of budgetary priorities encompassing the entire district, we are also planning for all necessary contingencies with regard to operating the district. And so sometimes when we talk in terms of listing our priorities and saying that this is what we need, I think the priorities that you were presented with throughout those meetings the last several weeks are very authentic. They're coming based on a consensus with department heads and principals, and they truly do represent the work that we're trying to do and the associated costs. At the same time, we understand that we are not the only constituent component of the city of Medford, and we understand that whatever the appropriation is made, we have a responsibility to operate the district and do so effectively. And so, as you've heard me say several times, we will be prepared to do that. As a school committee, your responsibility is to advocate on behalf of the district, and so we see it as our responsibility and the administration to provide you with the information necessary to do that. So as you've heard me say before, the various funding streams include money coming in based on our Chapter 70 allocation, the local contribution locally coming from the municipal level, and then the sort of variable that distinguishes the fiscal years amidst the COVID chapter are the external funds coming in from the federal government And those have a lot of questions associated with them, but they're also some significant dollars. And so while we know they are one-time dollars and we have to associate budgetary priorities with them in accordance with that, as we've said, we also want to make sure that we're understanding the urgency of some of the needs that our students are facing coming out of this multi-year instructional disruption. So these are the numbers that you've seen before, and you see I've crossed out our initial projections, they are generally in line with what we anticipated when we first got into some of the specificity of our projections on April 26th. The one exception is our fixed costs have come in at million dollars higher than we were anticipating. I did mention this in one of the Committee of the Whole meetings last week, I believe, maybe the week before. That million dollar variation is primarily attributable to fixed costs in the area of special education. If you'll remember from the presentations that we heard on May 6th, the special education budgeting process, we've compared it to a roller coaster in that we see the numbers, they look big, they look scary, but we know that there's a significant amount of external funding that will come in over the coming months that will offset that. And therefore, we can, at least for the time being, have a certain level of peace of mind looking back historically IDEA funds and the access to Circuit Breaker that have helped offset those costs. At the same time, we always need to have some insulation built in because the variability in special education budgeting is such that the numbers can go back to sort of the scary side of the budgetary continuum somewhat quickly. Other than that, we're generally in line and it should be the 3.1 to 5.8 number a little bit lower than than what the actual numbers will come in at the end of the week. But generally speaking, the priorities that the committee has discussed are in line with that. You'll see the number at the bottom there, the $1.4 million. That is the number if we collect all of the priorities listed in what was the bottom row of the budget narratives that were presented to you over those five meetings. I anticipate over the course of the next several days, And we just received ESSER III guidance from the state at the very end of last week. So using that guidance, I think we will have some options with regard to moving some of the budgetary priorities that are currently in the operating end of the budget into the ESSER funds, wanting to, again, be mindful of the one-time nature of those funds and not wanting to create unnecessary structural deficits. And also understanding that that funding has to extend over the course of the next several fiscal years. And so I do not expect that our recommended ESSER budgeting will approach the $7.6 million that we're anticipating over the next several budget cycles, but I think it will probably grow from the 1.4 million. And that coupled with the external funds that will come in to help offset those fixed costs will get us back within the range of, the vicinity of $5.8 million, a little bit lower, I think. And again, we'll plan for any and all contingencies. So if and when the appropriation is lower than the number that the school committee requests, and that's certainly an important dialogue that every community has to have, but I just wanna be clear, the school district will be prepared to operate and to do so effectively when that number is ultimately appropriated. So in terms of what you will be holding a hearing on, on Tuesday, June 1st, Based on the direction that we've received from the committee, the proposed budget that you will receive will reflect the all of the committee of the whole recommendation. So that's the number on the far right, the $69.9 million. That is a significant increase over the FY. 21 operating budget. Again, it does not include some of the funds that will flow in from an external, the external funds. So that will offset that to some degree. If we were to limit, and this is certainly, this is the prerogative of the school committee. If the requests were to be limited to the critical committee of the whole recommendations, it would be about $67.7 million. And you'll see all that in specificity when the budget books are issued to you before the end of this week. So with that, I'm happy to take your questions. I recognize, as I said, this is a high level, update. There'll be more specificity, certainly in documents that you received prior to the budget hearing on June 1st. But all of this, I hope and believe is fully consistent with the information that you've been presented with over the course of the past five public meetings. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Next, we have I don't think we have any old business. Is there any communications? Number 11, new business request for possible extension from the advisory committee to rename the Columbus Elementary School. And this was offered by myself as I've been trying to watch parts of the meetings when available. They do need an extension. It's up to us based on the policy to extend
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor, are we ready to conclude? Yes, I did get a letter regarding the whole Columbus issue. I didn't read it at the front. This is from Mr. Giglio. I know he was on earlier. Yes, he's still on. There's a kind of funny thing about the letters, which now we have this way that people can submit letters, but they're also on. But anyway, I think I need to read it because it was submitted through the proper channels, okay? It says, dear school committee, with the recent removal of one of the Columbus School renaming committee members due to his social media comments, many Medford residents strongly feel that the process is tainted and flawed due to not only his anti-bias views, but other committee members and their similar social media comments. Although this former member no longer sits on the committee, his suggestion that there was widespread cheating as well as his comments made about a particular race and nationality of people who took the time to fill out the response form is absolutely absurd. I would also like to bring up the disturbing fact that the beginning of the last renaming meeting, a letter was read on behalf of the NAACP. I believe, and I could be wrong, that the public was told that there would be no public participation of any kind during these renaming committee meetings. Not only was the NAACP, who does not sit on the renaming committee letter, but it also mentioned other issues and ideas that were suggested to be next on the agenda to be pushed through in the future. I've obtained and read the letter that the NAACP wrote that was addressed to the mayor of Medford and dated March 12th, 2021, which was before the renaming committee was chosen. This leads many people to believe that someone within the school committee or school system had this push through to be read during the meeting on May 12th. Madam mayor and school committee chair, with so many issues that have arisen during this process, which included certain timeline dates, made but not kept by the school committee and with the removal of the renaming committee member along with the NAACP letter that suggests changing other rules and policies the Medford community kindly asks that the Columbus school renaming process please cease and be re-evaluated request this Columbus school renaming process be added to the ballot for the November 2021 election to afford a fair process for all residents to have a say in the process. Please consider this request respectfully, Bill Giglio, Winthrop Street, Medford. 18 year resident.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: So Mayor, I have, no, if I may continue. Yes. Yeah, I would support if the advisory committee needs more time. I certainly would think that we can accommodate that. I will tell you that I did eavesdrop on the last meeting. I saw the committee slugging through the weeds of process. then I was very appreciative to all of them because that's the kind of hard work, the difficult conversations, the trying to figure out what's right. And I certainly saw, while I wouldn't necessarily have agreed with every comment that was made, I certainly saw people working with good faith. And I was very appreciative to the advisory committee. So my personal belief is that if the committee has asked us for more time, then absolutely in the interest of them going forward, we should accommodate their schedule.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member van de Kloot. It looks like we have our two meetings, regular meetings in June on the 7th and the 14th. So are you proposing that we have Is there a date you're proposing, or I'll actually let you think about it and call on member Kreatz.
[Van der Kloot]: I think we should hear from other members.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Kreatz and then member Rousseau.
[Kreatz]: Yes, I support the extension also. I did get to watch the part of the meeting last week. I was in another meeting, but I got to watch some of it. And they're working very hard. And it seems like there might have been some technical difficulties with some of the information and some of the information wasn't available. So, you know, I do think that they, you know, could use the extension and I approve and I support the extension.
[Lungo-Koehn]: member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. Make a motion to provide an extension to June 7th.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Second.
[Van der Kloot]: Roll call, please. Wait, wait, Mayor. Member Van der Kloot. Is June 7th really giving them the time they need?
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think it will just be back June 7th asking for another extension, but it's at least giving them more time past when it was due in a couple days.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, the other thing I would just wanted to mention before we do the roll call is we also received a letter from the Columbus Elementary staff, which I know is going to be shared with the committee, the advisory committee at their next meeting. It was a letter really suggesting some other alternatives that perhaps weren't as loaded. I believe I heard Mr. Lister mentioned in a letter back to Vicki Mello, who sent it on behalf of Columbus teachers, that he was going to read it at their next meeting. And I would be very interested in also hearing their opinion on the letter.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, thank you, Member Van der Kloot. We have Member Graham, then Member Ruseau.
[Graham]: Thank you. The resolution that the advisory committee passed to bring to us lays out the work that they've done to date and the work that they feel like they need, and they have indicated in their letter that they will be ready at any date of our choosing any time after June 4th. And so I believe them and take them at their word when they tell us that they know what work it is that they have ahead of them. So I feel like June 7th is a really reasonable date given what they have outlined for us.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Ruseau. I'm all set. Thank you.
[Van der Kloot]: Melanie.
[McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to thank the committee for all their hard work. This is not an easy task, and we appreciate what they're doing. And I also think June 7th is a fine date for continuation. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, motion on the floor. Second.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Moretti]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz?
[Moretti]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Mustone]: She put her finger up. Oh, yes, I can unmute now. Yes, thank you.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Mustone]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, 70 affirmative, zero in the negative. The extension is approved till June 7th. Thank you. Number two, beginning in the fall of 2021, an extract of the email addresses on file and school brains or whatever system is used for tracking parent caregiver emails will be created twice each school year. This extract will be used to create a white list within our email provider to allow emails in and out of for any email on that white list for grades K through eight. Presently K through eight emails are blocked from any incoming or outgoing email now within the Medford public schools. And this creates a problem for parents, caregivers, and students. Work arounds are challenging, expensive, and disruptive. And students and families should not have to purposefully circumvent our systems to perform perfectly valid activities such as communication with our students. Offered by member Rousseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. I actually, unless there's any questions about what this is, I don't have anything to say on the matter.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Before we vote on it, if you could just explain it.
[Ruseau]: Sure, so a whitelist is, it's a technical term. So it's an exception list. So our email system does not allow parents to email their own children or their children to email their parents in the K-8 grades. All in and out of communications for K-8 students is completely blocked. And many parents have complained to me about this in the last three and a half years. And the workarounds are rather, are simple, but they're not exactly equitable. Parents give their kids iPhones, they give them They have their kids logging in and other devices with other email accounts so that the kids can accomplish that. But of course, not all kids have those things and it's expensive, frankly. And so I don't exactly, I can't actually remember what communications I was having with a parent about this recently about that made me write the resolution. I'd have to look at my notes, but we can simply have a whitelist created Any email distribution system, and certainly Google, will have the capability of having a whitelist added to allow emails in and out to those email addresses.
[Lungo-Koehn]: OK. Dr. Edouard-Vincent, then member Kreatz.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I wanted to say that I spoke with Molly Layden and with the team. This is really going to present a hardship in terms of being able to manage the outside emails on our district network. It exposes us to additional vulnerabilities. There are other districts that do not open the network at all, their K through 12 network, because of what can potentially end up happening. And so once it is opened, the entire email system is essentially exposed. And so that was the reason why it's open for our students at the high school, grades nine through 12, is so that they can receive additional support from their guidance Councilors when they're applying for college applications. So it's really a specific use that the email system is being opened. But in the K through eight, amount of additional support to be opening up the district email system, we really would be opening ourselves up to vulnerabilities. And that is why, you know, I had said, you know, we knew that this was going to be posted, but I did the research to kind of look into it. And I really am not in support of us opening it up K through eight, knowing that we could end up giving ourselves additional technological issues where the emails are concerned, because we're not going to be able to monitor it the way we would want to monitor it right now. So by having it closed at least K through eight, it allows us to ensure that the emails are being used for school-related purposes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Kreatz, then Member Ruseau.
[Kreatz]: Thank you. Yes, I reached out to Dr. Cushing and Molly Leighton, and everything that Dr. Edward Benson mentioned, that is the information that I received, that there's a restriction for safety and security for the students who are of age up through 13 and and under should not have access to email that's not monitored consistently um you know so and what molly had had mentioned in the email is that the k-8 issued email accounts are closed and that they should only be used to communicate within the medford um k12.ma.us domain the high school emails are open and can receive and send emails outside of the Medford Public Schools domain so that students are able to use their school email for related communications such as job applications, colleges, etc. So, you know, I agree with the superintendent's recommendation that we shouldn't open up the email for the K through 8. I think it should be kept closed down for security reasons. Similarly, at my work, you know, for some reason, you know, there was some, you know, technical problems going on, and we switched from one email mechanism to another. It was some people's emails were, so to speak, blacklisted. And it was quite extensive in getting that information repaired. And there was also, we could have been in potential danger from getting unnecessary emails that we shouldn't be getting. So we were taking precautions at that time. So I just wanted to mention that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Kreatz. We have Member Ruseau and then also Dr. Cushing.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. I think that it's clear from the conversation at this moment that nobody on this who's spoken so far knows what whitelisting or blacklisting means or knows anything about email administration. And I would just point out that any notion that are opening up our email system for nine through 12, The reasons we open it up, I support. If I was to show you what the inbox of a ninth grader looked like and the amount of porn that a ninth grader gets in our school system, you would be shocked. Okay. So the, and I'm talking from experience as a parent of a ninth grader. Okay. So if we don't have anybody on the call, who knows what white listing is or email management system management is, then this isn't gonna go anywhere. And I'm just really a little concerned that even the point of this motion is completely missed because every kid who has a parent that's just gonna hand them an iPhone to communicate with can look up all of the porn and all of the stuff we don't want them to look at without any control that we have. I mean, I remember elementary school. Dr. K is right there. How many elementary school kids in kindergarten show up with iPhones? Do you think we have any restrictions, control, porn, spam, any control over any of that? If you do, then we're just pretending that there's something that's going on that's not real. So I'm not sure. A whitelist does not allow anybody in. It also does not open our network in any way, shape or form. A whitelist has nothing to do with our network. It allows an email address, a specific email address to get through the filter. Or when you go to send an email from within the school system, if that email address is on the whitelist, it goes out. It's not a security risk any more than the vast security risks that we already have in our school system.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Dr. Cushing?
[Cushing]: So thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. I appreciate and understand Mr. Rousseau's motion. I also do understand whitelist and blacklist. There are a couple of issues. Our data for a whitelist is only as good as the data that is provided to us by families. And we have a difficult time maintaining good, clean data when a person changes their email address, changes their phone number, whatever it may be. So we would have a difficult time maintaining that level of data cleanliness to maintain an up-to-date whitelist. Also, I will say this, that when I first came to Medford and found out that high school students were allowed to email outside of the domain, as Mr. Russo just mentioned, because of the issues of what can come into a student's inbox, I was surprised in no other district that I've worked in where students are allowed to have email addresses, have they been allowed to email outside of the domain and have that level of contact. Anything outside of that was, you know, for the realm of a personal email address, Google, I believe their policy while not having it right in front of me right now is for no one under the age of 13 to have a Google account. If they find out that you are under the age of 13, they will suspend it. Now that may be different because ours is, for all intents and purposes, a closed system that we purchased from them. The other thing is, finally, I would be remiss to say that I would be concerned that on a district system that we could have something negative happen where we now, as a result of the COVID pandemic, have opened up our students to having Gmail accounts in K-1-2. Ms. Galussi can probably chime in, but I don't believe that we offered that previously. Most districts prior to the pandemic only offered students accounts in grades three through eight. And so I understand and fully respect the need for parents to be in touch with their students and their students' teachers and the positive benefits that could come from this, even if we have a wait list, I worry that we would not be able to maintain that wait list and the cleanliness of that data. And then if we just were to say, open it up, which I know is not what is being asked for, but I would have serious reservations and concerns about the malicious interests that can lurk on the web of reaching in. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Cushing. We have member Ms. Stone, then member Rousseau again, and we also have a resident, Ms. Kugno, so member Ms. Stone.
[Mustone]: Yes, thank you, Mayor. I appreciate Member Ruseau bringing this up. I do think it brings us to another point, which the parents on the line can probably relate, is that we still fill out a paper copy of all of our information. So I can remember a year that there was six forms for my medical, six forms for the emergency contact, six forms of my family biography. So I think that ties in because if we did all of that information online, we could just export the parent one, parent two, guardian one, guardian two, to be able to have it on a white list. I think it's doable because I know if I email teachers from my Yahoo email, all the teachers can get it and Tegan, my sophomore, can get it. So it is something that we can handle. So I do think, like Member Ruseau said, we did have a number of parents who said they're not at the point where they want to give their fourth grader a phone, but they do want to touch base during the day or put on a thread with the teacher about concerns of their child. So I guess mine is probably the a two-part to could we talk about getting all of our information online? You know there's family ID and Ravenna and all these school information sites that I think is an important step for us to move forward and I don't know if that should be an own motion or if we can tie it in but I definitely think we need to step up with our technology and family information. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Mustone. Member Ruseau, then Member Graham.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I certainly want to acknowledge the data cleanliness problem. It's a staffing problem. It's a systems problem. None of this data cleanliness is not free. And it's not just a matter of whether or not parents have written a legible email address on paper or versus typed it into school brains. It's far more complicated than that. I'm a little surprised that that's an issue after a whole year of what I think of is unprecedented need to communicate with families. Are we saying we have lots of families where we have no valid way to communicate with them today? Because if that's the case, that seems kind of crazy in the middle of a pandemic. Mr. Murphy wants to answer that question before I keep going, I think.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, thank you. Would you like to comment, Mr. Murphy?
[Murphy]: If you don't mind. I think there's no question to Mr. Rousseau's point that we are in a better place today than we were at the beginning of the school year for several reasons. One of which is there's been a significant amount of data cleanup that has been part of our COVID testing program in which a very significant portion of our student population have been participating at all grade levels. That being said, it's an ongoing challenge. I wouldn't say it's the case that we have huge swaths of data that we're missing, but it is the case that it's a challenge that's very much continuous. And oftentimes families who are already facing some of the most significant challenges who frankly updating their data with us is not their biggest concern. And so I do have concerns with regard to the equity of the application of this policy. I think what it really comes down to is it's something that should be simple and it's something that we should be able to do efficiently. But I think from the administration's perspective, we're not confident that we're there yet, either with respect to personnel or to systems. And I think we have to build out those systems before we would be able to do this in a way that we'd feel confident. We will, as always, we will do, we will follow the policy of the committee and we'll report back if its application or its implementation just proves impossible. But the committee should know that we have, as a team, we have significant reservations about this.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I just, the equity point of that though, I think, I appreciate that you're pointing that out. The other side of it as I see it is, if you must communicate with your child K to eight, pardon me, then your option is to buy them an iPhone or Android or whatever. And when I ask, when I think about who can afford that, equity has to be part of that conversation. I mean, there's always, of course, parents who are like, I'm not giving my phone and, you know, the wait till eight system, which I was a supporter of, and I waited till they were in eighth grade, but I didn't need to communicate with my kids because there was somebody home all the time. But if there were going to be transportation or childcare issues, or you don't go home to mom, you got to go home to dad's house today because You know, parents aren't living together. A thousand reasons for which a parent must communicate during the day. And we just say no. We just say no.
[Murphy]: But we don't, though, Mr. President. I just don't. We don't just say no. I mean, we may say that mail system is not the platform for that communication to happen on a daily basis. If there are families with extenuating circumstances, we will work with those families either through often the health services office or the principal's office or Sometimes directly with the teacher, but and I think our experiences of those are generally exceptions to the rule, rather than the norm. And it's probably that's part of why the systems haven't been built out, frankly, the way that they need to. And that's, I absolutely think this is something we can work toward. And I don't know that there's divergence with regard to what we would all like to see happen and like to see possible. We'd love to be able to provide a very convenient means of communication between families and students so that, you know, we're improving that dynamic and hopefully also communicating more frequently with the parents and family caregivers. So I think the goal is generally share, but I think there's concern about our ability to update data, number one, and with regard to some of the safety and security concerns that have already been raised. And I don't I can't say that we feel right now that we would have the capacity to do that. I absolutely think it's something we can work toward and come back and report on. But I don't, I don't, I want to be very clear. We don't just say too bad. That's just not, and if anyone is having that experience, they should raise it with the central administration, but I don't believe that to be the case.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. Member Graham, then member Van der Kloot, then we have a couple of residents that would like to comment.
[Graham]: Thank you. You know, I think one of the possible opportunities with this resolution is that we refer to the engagement communications and strategic planning subcommittee. We just heard about the new Harvard superintendent in residence who has apparently like very deep expertise in family engagement. And to me, this resolution is all about family engagement. It's all about keeping parents and students on the same page. There are other purposes, but I think, you know, I can't communicate simultaneously with my child's teacher and them. That's like not as big of a deal in elementary school, but it's a really big deal in middle school when communication to parents drops off completely, it's like a cliff. So I would like to see this committee endorse the fact that this is a priority in terms of family engagement and acknowledge that it's not without challenges and send it to the subcommittee on family engagement to work through this in a meaningful way, probably at the start of the next school year, given the rest of our calendar.
[Lungo-Koehn]: make a motion to refer.
[McLaughlin]: To say I make a motion to refer to the, um, communication subcommittee family and community community engagement Communications subcommittee.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Came motion by member McLaughlin before them. That motion is called member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: I'd actually like to defer to the to miss Cugno and Adam, who so if I could have
[Lungo-Koehn]: I'm gonna, you should see the button to unmute.
[SPEAKER_11]: Okay, yep, I'm all set, thank you. I actually have a couple of questions here, and that is, there's been discussion on two things. One is family engagement, and that is how to get your address for the record. Oh, I'm so sorry, Emery Cugno 871 Felsway Medford mess. Thank you. Um, you're welcome and I should have known better. Sorry. Um, there were two things that people are talking about and that is one is family engagement and the other one is child engagement, family engagement is something that I'm not saying one is more important than the other, but I totally understand the engagement that a person has. You're only dealing with one teacher most of the time when you're K through five. Once they go to middle school, then there's teams of teachers and high school is the same thing. It's a very important issue that I know that there was communication. I know we had certain apps that we were working with, software programs that we were working with in the past. I'm not sure if they're still up and going, but There's, as a person listening to this meeting, as a parent, I would get, it seems a little bit nerve wracking. First of all, I do know that if anyone has ever, I mean, I was on the school committee for many years. I don't remember anybody telling me they couldn't get in touch with their child for an emergency or because their buses had to get switched that day or because someone else was picking them up. They always called the school and the school, whether it be the principal, headmaster, assistant principals, the information always got to the child. So I don't want parents out there thinking that if they don't have iPhones, if they don't have certain, you know, things to connect directly with the child, that they're never going to be able to get a message to their child. The other thing is, is that before we open up any more, Mr. Russo said something about pornography. And as a school committee member, I think that would be a huge issue that should be discussed and taken care of before emails and more emails are put on our sites. So, I mean, if people are saying that their children are seeing pornography that's coming to us, or, I mean, please specify and clarify what's going on, because I think it's important that before anybody else adds more onto our service, um, that that really needs to be addressed.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Miss Kugno.
[SPEAKER_08]: You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Maybe that can also be addressed in the in the subcommittee meeting and figure out ways to explore how to resolve that. Member van de Kloot?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, thank you. I would support sending this to the subcommittee. I think there's lots of issues involved, including whether we have the personnel, whether we have the systems in place, perhaps we're identifying an issue. I may be sounding kind of old school, but, you know, I have some concerns about parents talking to their kids all throughout the school day because, and I always saw that, I mean, that certainly if there's a concern around transportation or who's going where, whatever, those are communications that do need to happen. But also, I think there's a lot of questions here. So I support it going to the subcommittee.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So motion by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Van der Kloot. Member Mustone?
[Mustone]: Could a school information system possible quote be moved in as well with that motion? I do think the papers, I just, in this day and age, the papers for the bus pass, the emergency contact, the, I don't know if it's called family biography or what the top of the one is, that it's teeny tiny lines and teeny tiny space. Um, but I think if we go to a school information system that the parents is more user friendly, so I'm not sure if that could be included to just quote some. I know three offhand because I know other schools who use them, but I would appreciate if that could be included. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, so motion for approval by member McLaughlin, seconded by member Van der Kloot as amended by member Stone. Roll call, please.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Graham]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Mustone]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Mustone]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. 70 affirmative, zero in the negative. Motion is approved. Next, we have be it resolved that the Medford School Committee return to having our regularly scheduled meetings at Medford City Hall along with Zoom capability. Further, that the committee discuss a protocol for determining in the future what meetings are held fully on Zoom and which will be held in person. Submitted by member Kathy Kreatz and member Paulette van de Kloot. I'm gonna turn the floor over to the two of you. I just wanna let you know that the governor did allow Zoom meetings by special order, so he will be coming. That's... will not be in effect as of June 15th. So he should be coming up with new guidelines that will help guide us. But I think it's a great idea. I'm in favor of going back for the regular meetings. We have one in June 7th and one on June 14th. So I'm in support of this. Member Kretser, Member Vindiclude, if you want to take the floor.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, Kathy, go ahead.
[Kreatz]: Okay, Ms. Van's good. Yeah, you know, just following the guidance from the governor and, you know, seeing that the city council is back in chambers and, you know, we do have the capability to have, you know, a hybrid model where we could have the Zoom on at the same time and have members in chambers. And of course, if members can't come to chambers, they could still join the meeting via zoom and that's what the city council was doing and um it worked you know very well i watched a couple of meetings and you know um you know the the screen was there you could hear the members who were calling from home and they were visible they were clear and um the audience could still be on zoom and participate um i think it's a good idea now that you know, with the reopening and with a lot of the restrictions being lifted, you know, we've been hearing from a lot of community members that they would like to see the school committee back in chambers. I'll turn it over to Ms. Van de Koop.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, so Mayor, I do think it's time. My only concern is that we've just sent the advisory committee to make their presentations on the 7th And I don't know whether it's more complicated or less complicated for them if all of a sudden we say, oh, well, yeah, we're going to be in the chambers. So that's something I'm a little uncertain about. I think we're fine. You think you're fine? OK. So then fine. Then I would say that we should return and it should be, you know, it's time. Luckily, it's time. Thank God it's time. Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Thank you, mayor. I too am very excited to return to the chambers actually. My concern is around subcommittees and committees as a whole. I think it's, I'll just say, I think it would be wildly irresponsible to pack the superintendent's conference room to the gills with people. There is no technology in that room. So anybody who would be interested in a meeting there will have to come to that room. And I'm quite curious. I'm sorry, could you, it seems like somebody is unmuted. So without having, without any technology capabilities in that superintendent's conference room, I'm also very curious what the HVAC situation is and how many people are allowed in that particular space.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Dr. Edward-Vinson?
[Edouard-Vincent]: I want to just notify the school committee that the superintendent's conference room is now outfitted as a Zoom room. So it has the full capability to broadcast through Zoom. It has the large screen TV there. we could hold meetings there and at the same time communicate with the community at large that's still logging on by Zoom. So that was one of the perks during the closure that we did make that space outfitted as a Zoom room. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And Director Cushing, if you want to have anything to add.
[Cushing]: Yeah. While I don't have the specific air exchange information in front of me, I will say that in that conference room, you'll have to speak up. because the airflow coming through there is actually loud now because it is moving so well. I'd also like to note that we do have a Zoom room capacity at the McGlynn in one of the conference rooms at the McGlynn Middle School Elementary School for future reference as well.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Now we have member Kreatz, Van der Kloot and Rousseau. And if I could just point out again, the governor will be revising his orders. So at some point before June 15th, he may order that we have to go back to in-person meetings or that we need a quorum. Hopefully he will keep the Zoom capabilities, which you're assuming he will, but just need to figure out the next couple of weeks, that's all. Member Kreatz.
[Kreatz]: Yes, so I wanted to know because I wasn't sure how it would be handled. So, um, you know, this was before the code. Um, you know, we had Mr. McLaughlin was was doing our meetings. So, you know, I think that, you know, we'll have to work out the technical piece of who is going to cover our meetings. you know, when we do go back to chambers and who's going to be covering the meeting and the Zoom. I know Mr. Dr. Cushing has been doing the Zoom. So, you know, I don't know the mechanics and working those details out. That was something that, you know, I wanted to bring up. I don't know what details, you know, are going to be covered by whom or whoever. and then also at the same time if any of the committee members have any like medical reasons why they wouldn't need to wear a mask or they wouldn't be able to wear a mask um would the medical like would that committee member be able to you know remove the mask in the chambers um in between the barricade because i know that they have the glass petitions and um you know, to keep the distance and the glass petitions so that if the committee member is like vaccinated and has difficulty breathing and has a medical note, can that person remove their mask with that or would that person have to go on the remote call?
[Lungo-Koehn]: As of June 1st, if you are vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask.
[Kreatz]: And would that be the same for being in the committee of the whole, so the subcommittee, if they were in those separate rooms? Because I know that the governor did say that all of the restrictions would be over once June 15th, like the number of people attending meetings. So yeah, okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. No, I don't know the answer to that question, but everything is kind of going back to normal June 1st. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I mean, and the guidance from a while back, I don't know if Ms. Ray is on the call, it's been a while that if you're in a meeting indoors and all parties are vaccinated, you do not have to wear a mask.
[Murphy]: I'm sorry, Mayor, I just want to clarify, in all school district facilities, these restrictions are still in place per the director of the superintendent. While the public health guidance is in place, as we communicated related to the recess masks, as Director Ray spoke to earlier in the evening, we've made those modifications. But for Medford Public School facilities, and this would frankly go for any meetings, any visitors, any community members using it, or certainly students or staff, the mask requirement is in place for the remainder of the school year. So I just want that to be clear for community members who might be watching.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Kreatz, if you're finished, I'll go to Member Van der Kloot, then Member Ruseau, then Member Graham.
[Kreatz]: Yeah, I didn't take my hand down, sorry. Okay, thank you. Member Van der Kloot?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, I just wanted to mention that I do think in the future, and I don't know exactly what the governor's advisory is going to be, but there also is, there is a plus side to sometimes having Zoom meetings, either weather related or whether you members are, you know, so I'm hoping that as we go forward into this next phase, and as we figure out meetings, that we're both returning to chambers, which will be a delight for many of us, but also that since we've now have this capability of doing meetings by Zoom, that sometimes we might opt to do a subcommittee meeting or something by Zoom. So it'll be interesting as we go forward.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Ruseau, then Member Graham.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. So having watched the city council meeting recently where the rule was that people had to wear a mask and the public just essentially gave the middle finger to the city councilors. And I guess I'm wondering, since you are the presiding officer, and all of us are presiding officers in subcommittee meetings, if we are in the superintendent's conference room, and somebody from the public refuses to wear a mask, and the superintendent still has the authority to say a mask is required. I would like to know what the next steps are when that does happen, because I would like to be clear, it will happen. And according to the open meeting law, the proper course is for us to call the police. That just seems really a lot of a very heavy lift, but I'm not interested in being like the city council where They are ordered to wear a mask and the public just says, okay, and then puts it under their chin. So what are we going to do as a school committee when that happens? Because it's going to happen. And, you know, wearing a mask when you're vaccinated doesn't make any sense anymore. Also, by the way, wearing a, you know, it's fine to not wear a mask if you don't have COVID. It's the same thing. We don't know who's vaccinated. We're not gonna be checking vaccination cards when people come into these meetings. So as long as we're in the school system in that building, anybody not wearing a mask should be removed. And how do we do that?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Well, when they didn't wear them at city council meetings, although I remember whoever was presiding as president asked them to wear them. That was over the last several weeks. So that was before June 1st when now they're not required. So if we're in a meeting in the conference room and it's all adults and we're vaccinated, we would be able to take off our masks.
[Ruseau]: No, we would not.
[Lungo-Koehn]: June 1st on.
[Ruseau]: The superintendent has that authority, not us or the board of health.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So I'm not sure if Madam Superintendent has even decided whether or not we're gonna have mass at meetings, but we also have to make sure that the conference rooms are televised, have capability to be televised before we move to a small conference room.
[Edouard-Vincent]: The conference room across the way does, I know it has the Zoom capacity, so if it's a Zoom room, we would just be required to give the link, to the TV station, and they should be able to broadcast it or simulcast it for us. In terms of mask usage and wearage, when people come on campus and they are processed through the front desk, if they don't have a mask, we do have disposable masks that are available. And, you know, if in the case someone were to have a medical condition and they were to, you know, let that be made known, then we would, you know, work with them in a capacity that we could, but the conference room across the hall. you know, it is a smaller space, but as Dr. Cushing mentioned earlier, there is definitely increased airflow, and we do have access to additional HEPA filters if we were to need to place an additional HEPA filter within that conference room space.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Graham, then Member McLaughlin, then we have a resident that would like to say.
[Graham]: Thank you. I was going to suggest that we also ask the rules policy and equity subcommittee to follow the proceedings over the course of the next several weeks and months really to present the school committee of policy on remote participation that's compliant with the law that preserves, I think the increased participation we have seen because of Zoom Um, which I think we all agree is a plus and, um, also sort of navigates, you know, lots of rules yet to be made. So I would like to see us, um, ask. The rules, policy and equity subcommittee to take this on and present something back to us. And it may even take until, you know, September of next year. But, um, as member Van der Kloot said, there are, there are times and reasons why having remote meetings. would continue to make sense if it's allowed by law for members. Certainly I don't wanna lose the participation that we've experienced and the options that affords working parents to be able to join us for these meetings and go back to what we used to see in city hall chambers, which was an audience of two or three at most. So I would like the rules, policy and equity subcommittee to take that on. as it unfolds. And then I think the other thing that I will say is being a regular watcher of the city council meetings, I don't find them to be easy to watch in the current format. So I would also be interested in what changes are coming to chambers because I don't find those meetings very easy to watch right now with the way the camera angles are set. And it's just, it's, it's a real, and maybe it's just a very stark contrast with the luxuries that you get when you're looking at a Zoom screen and you can see the people speaking quite clearly, and the closed captioning that Zoom affords. I just wanna make sure we're not losing some of those capabilities as we make this transition, because I think the public has appreciated them.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Graham. We have Nadine.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Oh, geez, I'm sorry. I was called by the hands on the right. Member McLaughlin then named Dean.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. I wanted to also echo the sentiment that, you know, any accessibility issues are considered for, you know, going back into chambers. So the closed captioning that we've had, those kinds of things, you know, are important that we maintain. And then also somebody had asked or mentioned the concern over sort of the microphone cleanliness, right? So if everybody's going up to the mic as well, like what the protocol is gonna be for that. And I know it's so interesting, it's things that we haven't thought about pre-pandemic. I think everybody sort of just did that and now they're a whole different, I know I'll never look at a door handle the same way again, but I think we need to, I think we need to think about those things too. So I would second the idea that we should be creating some policy around what this is gonna look like.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And again, it's almost like when you watch TV and you see people touching and you're like, why are you touching? Anyway, okay, Nadine and then Ms. Kugno.
[Moretti]: Thank you, Mayor. I was at the city council meeting last week and I think, I mean, everybody had their masks on, but to speak, I found it that you really couldn't understand or hear somebody really clearly. So to pull the mask down, I think it just made it easier for even the people on Zoom to hear what the people were saying, because the mask, you know, sometimes you can't hear. So I don't think it was anything purposeful that they weren't, you know, listening to the city council members request, because after a while, everybody that went up to speak did pull their mask down under their chin, spoke and then put it back on. So, I mean, I think it's just difficult. And I think they wanted just to hear, be able to have everybody hear what we were saying. So I don't think it was anything deliberate, at least for me. You know, I took it down, and if they said put it back up, I would. But for them to understand what I was saying, it was easier to pull the mask down. Yeah, but that's it. That's all I wanted to say. Thanks.
[SPEAKER_11]: Hello? How did I?
[Lungo-Koehn]: We have a motion on the floor. Member Graham, did you want that as a motion? Yeah, that sounds good.
[Graham]: If we can just amend this one, that's fine.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, so motion as amended by Member Graham. Ms. Kugno, did you want to speak? Please.
[SPEAKER_11]: Okay. Go ahead. Do I have to re-say my name and address again, for the record? 871-FELSA, Ms. Guzman. Thank you. I would just ask that there are protocols and there's policies, but there's also common sense. You're offering to do a meeting both in person and on Zoom. So it's not like you're taking away the possibility of people still watching on Zoom, but The people in the city, they've been asking and they're all, we all want an in-person meeting. I'm not only speaking for myself, I'm speaking for a lot of people. We need to have that opportunity to come in person. Some people feel comfortable on Zoom, some people feel comfortable in person. It's time. it's time for people to see you. And I know there's a motion on there saying that maybe you'll wait for your policies and protocols to be looked at and reviewed, but that might even take until September. I mean, Ms. Gray mentioned something about September, so I just wanna make sure that we clarify that you guys aren't waiting until September.
[Lungo-Koehn]: No, we'll be back in the chambers for our regular meeting on June 7th. Beautiful. Thank you. Yep. And our two meetings that month are June 7th, June 14th, we'll be in chambers. Thank you. Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: I didn't have my hand up, Mayor, but Member Ruseau does. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. I am very excited for June 7th. I would just ask that, unlike the city council, we don't have Larry. I don't know Larry's title or his last name, but he does the check-in of everybody, they have to sign in, so the contact tracing can take place, unless we're expecting by June 7th that there'll be no more contact tracing. I don't know, but if there is still contact tracing requirements, sorry, go ahead, Mayor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, no, you won't have to, but we can always put a book out, and there's always several admin at our meetings, so I'm sure we can check people in if we so choose.
[Ruseau]: I just think we should decide whether we're going to do that now since the next meeting is that meeting. Yeah, I just feel like the people that think that the pandemic was a hoax aren't signing in. And they're also not getting vaccinated. I'm happy to sign in, I'm vaccinated, I have no fear of the pandemic getting me. So I get what's the point of contact tracing and even doing that effort if people will actively not sign in. So I'm fine just saying we're not gonna put a pen up and we're not gonna have any kind of, it's theater is my point. There's nobody who disagrees that there's been plenty of theater, safety theater going on in some situations. Most of it has not been theater, but I am not a fan of theater. It costs money, people's time and effort. And I would be fine with no sign in and no contact tracing if we're not going to have somebody there to every person walking through the door, what's your name and address? And then when they put down, you know, Pete Rose, no, what's your name? You know, what's your real name? We're not going to do that. Then I would be fine with no None of that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. The motion on the floor is amended by member Graham. Is there a second?
[McLaughlin]: Second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin, roll call, please.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Mustone]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Mustone]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Logo Kern.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven of the affirmative, zero on the negative. We will see everybody in chambers on the 7th of June. Last up, we have one condolence. The Medford School Committee extends its condolences to the family of Kathleen Ellen Mortel, mother-in-law of Joanne Mortel of the Medford Public Schools Business Office. We'll take a moment of silence.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Motion to adjourn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Adjourned by Member McLaughlin, seconded by... Second. Member... Graham. Graham. Roll call, please.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, 70 affirmative, zero in the negative. I wish the best to the prom, to those going to prom on Thursday, and have a great rest of the week, everybody.
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